Birthday Cake!

“Birthday cake is just about the happiest outcome flour can hope for.” Amen. There’s nothing quite as good as birthday cake, and no better excuse to make it than my sweet husband’s birthday!

He’s a pretty traditional guy. Doors are opened for ladies (check), Fridays are for bow ties, and birthday cake has yellow cake and chocolate buttercream frosting. End of story.

For his 33rd (er…fifth 29th) birthday, I also spelled out his name in sailing flags (a good nautical theme never goes amiss in this house).

My awful confession is that I didn’t even finish putting the cake together until the day after his birthday! Hand over wife-of-the-year award any time. However, a tasty piece of cake and a cold glass of milk makes for a great Sunday breakfast. mmmm

I used Smitten Kitchen’s best birthday cake recipe and Savory Sweet Life’s chocolate buttercream recipe to make the magic. The cake was moist and flavorful and the frosting was sweet, but without the grocery-store-cake-sugar-coma effect.

So after assembling, slathering, sprinkling and slicing, we had our cake…and ate it, too. Birthdays are best as two day affairs, right? Happy Birthday, David!

Birthday Cake

Yields two 9 inch cakes and 4-5 cups frosting

Ingredients

4 cups plus 2 tbsp cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temp

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 cups buttermilk

Frosting

3 sticks butter, room temp

4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp table salt

3 3/4 tsp vanilla extract

6 1/2 tbsp heavy cream (or milk will do)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and set aside. In stand mixer with paddle attachment, mix butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 3 mins). Add one egg at a time and mix until incorporated after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until combined. Alternate adding your buttermilk and flour mixture, starting and ending with the flour (1/3 flour, 1/2 buttermilk) (add at low speed to avoid a flour dusting).

Once your ingredients are fully mixed, pour into buttered 9 inch cake pans and bake at 350 for 40 minutes, or until knife inserted comes out clean. Once removed, let your cakes cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then run a knife around the outside and invert to remove from the pan, and let cool completely for 1 hour.

For your frosting, beat butter in stand mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Sift flour and cocoa powder (I’m a big fan of sifting here, keeps you from having lumpy frosting!) into your stand mixer on low speed and mix until incorporated. Add your vanilla, salt and heavy cream/milk and beat on medium speed until evenly combined. If your frosting is too thick for your liking, add more cream/milk. If it’s too runny, add more powdered sugar.

Slather on your frosting and eat cake for breakfast! Or any ol’ time.

Time

1 hour